BLUEBEARD: The Life and Crimes of Gilles de Rais

by Leonard Wolf ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 1980

By the editor of the Annotated Frankenstein and Annotated Dracula, Bluebeard--the highly conjectural, generally dubious, definitely gory story of the greatest child-murderer who ever lived. Wolf does admit, modestly, that he doesn't know why Gilles de Rais murdered over a hundred children; but he is not without his ideas, the leading one being that Gilles was not insane (and thus dismissable as an aberration), but rather ""a crystallization out of the human essence. A miserable instance of who else we are."" Given proper circumstances, we might do likewise. But more than Gilles' circumstances are unique. Wealthy at birth, in his teens he kidnapped, raped, then married a girl from a nearby estate so that he could acquire her property; there had been opposition because of her close blood tie to him. Following his enormous inheritance, he became a close follower of Jeanne d'Arc, assisting her in battle, and was apparently shocked by her eventual burning. He retired to his estate and began spending prodigiously, if not madly, treating Orleans and other towns to lavish theatrical displays, and himself to enormous troops of knights and clerics as his personal attendants. Then began dabblings in alchemy, Satanism, and--via a ""home"" for young boys-- sodomization and dismemberment. After a reign of terror that silenced the countryside for eight years, the Church got after him for heresy and he confessed to the lesser crimes of murder, meanwhile passing through a crisis from which, ostensibly, he emerged semi-beatified. Dross.

Pub Date: June 1, 1980

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Potter--dist. by Crown

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1980

Categories: NONFICTION